Everything You Ever
by TheShadierTwin
Summary: Companion piece to "Custodiat". Who is Rorshach? It's all in the interpretation. Crossover with Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
1. Chapter 1

I do not own Watchmen or Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

----

I have everything I ever—

No.

That's not true.

Everything I ever wanted was for the world to make sense again, and to be with Penny. When my mother was killed in a drive-by shooting when I was seven, I thought being a superhero would make the world make sense. When my father was crushed by falling debris from the Flying Frontiersman battling it out with General Panic when I was in high school, I realized that it was the world itself that was out of control. Maybe, I thought, I could be the one to control it.

I was wrong.

That job is too big for me. For any human. Or alien. Or robot. Or whatever the hell Bleemar is. Maybe a god could do it, but that's what Wodin claims to be, and he's made little progress so far.

I started looking in other places, other times, other dimensions for help. I couldn't...There was nobody who could help. Almost every alternation on Earth as we know it ended when a nuclear or super-powered arms race went... bad. Our world always ended in fire.

Not if I can help it.

Penny believed in the goodness of the human soul. Everything she ever wanted was for us to take care of those of us who needed it. Everything she ever wanted... was to save the world. So, for her, I'll save the world.

There's one world that didn't end in fire. A world with heroes but very few powers. Psychics, geniuses, a few cases of minor super-strength, and one man with the powers of a god who left the world to rot in its own filth. But it didn't rot. It... got better. Most of the masks went away, and the world went back to being mostly sane. War even stopped for a few centuries. A man called Ozymandias - well, you don't really need to worry. I've adapted his master stroke for the next Cold War-like stalemate, and if this tape does what it's supposed to - and I'll be using my Futurevision to check before I go to stage three—

Sorry. I kind of lost track.

The main reason I'm making this tape is so you won't go looking into what I was doing. My plan kept failing, and it was because you found out some of the more gruesome details and tried to stop me. Tried to stop... it. I... I can't let that happen. It won't happen in your lifetime anyway. I really hope this convinces you to leave it alone. Otherwise...

Anyway. I also wanted to say goodbye. I'm going to that world, Moist. There's another man there, a man named Rorshach. I'm going to meet him, and hopefully, he'll judge me for my crimes, and kill me. Please, any flowers you would have left me, put them on Penny's grave. She... she deserves them more than I do, anyway. Um... I willed my new house to you - any of my stuff in it, you can keep or sell or whatever - but my lab's going to blow up when I go. Above all, destroy this tape when you're done watching it. That's all I want. To save the world and to be dead.

With Penny.

And the world will make sense again.


	2. Chapter 2

I do not own Watchmen or Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

----

I miscalculated.

I missed the New York event.

I landed in the right universe, the right city, the right god damned block. But I was three days, four hours, five minutes and twenty-seven seconds too late.

That event, Ozymandias' creature, that was my failsafe. The Comedian is dead, the creature has detonated, Dr. Manhattan is gone, and the New Frontiersman - the issue with Rorshach's journals, the issue that caused the conspiracy-minded community to burst ever so briefly into the limelight - says that Rorshach is probably dead too.

Ozymandias won't kill me. He won't even have me killed by a third party. If I come to his attention, he'll know I'd never jepordize his goal. Besides, in a few days, he'll shut himself away and not be seen again until his very public funeral. I could hardly miss a world event of that magnitude in my studies of this universe.

Comedienne might, when she comes out. She's violent enough. But she's with Nite Owl and he won't kill. He may not let her kill.

I think my best bet is to wait for Rorshach.

I found another one of Rorshach's spare faces when I was looking for food. I want to die quickly, not starve to death. Maybe I'll get lucky and eat some rat poison by mistake. So far I've found three masks, a fedora and two trenchcoats, although one of the trenchcoats has a hole worn through in the elbow. I've patched it up as best as I can. They won't be able to see it in the dark anyway, and Rorshach doesn't do media. I'll point it out to him when he shows up, before he kills me.

It's funny. I would have thought he'd have shown up by now. I've hardly seen anyone at all since the government took Ozymandias' creature away last month. But the only people who showed up have been some homeless kids, most of them girls. And more government people. But nobody like Rorshach. Nobody tall as me, and thin like they've been eating out of a dumpster, and bold, crazy, hopeless or stupid enough to jump into situations they probably won't walk away from...

Oh.

I miscalculated.

I guess I should find a journal.


	3. Chapter 3

I do not own Watchmen or Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

----

I need to be cautious. I may not have much to live for but history says I haven't died yet.

"Ozymandias," I say. My voice comes out harsh - I don't use it much anymore. He jumps and turns around. He's pale, like he's looking at a ghost.

Oh. Right.

"You were going to reveal your part in what happened in New York. I can't let you do that."

A knock at the door. "Come in," says Veidt weakly, not taking his eyes off me. It's Nite Owl and Comedienne, in civilian dress but I'd know those two anywhere. Comedienne pulls a gun on me and I have to fight the urge to startle her.

"Rorshach..." says Nite Owl. "I'd heard you were back, but I thought... You can't be..."

"I am Rorshach," I say. "I think. It's all in the interpretation, isn't it?" I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror on Veidt's wall. For a moment, it looks like the smiley face that was the Comedian's symbol. I turn back to Veidt. "I can't let you do it. I need to save the world."

"Are you going to kill me?"

"Yes." A look of almost relief crosses Veidt's face, and I want it. I pull out a syringe. "This will simulate a heart attack."

"Will it be..."

"It's not entirely painless but it's quick. Here."

Comedienne walks towards us. "Whoa! Don't you remember—"

"No I don't. I am not now, nor was I ever Walter Kovacks. He is long dead, and so is Billy Buddy, and so is Dr. Horrible. And so is Penny. I am Rorshach, or nobody, until I am dead." I inject the serum into Adrian Veidt's vein, all of it, so I won't be tempted. He dies quickly. "Find anything that looks like a confession and destroy it. There are too many innocent people dead to let the plan be derailed now."

Comedienne wants to kill me, and I want to let her, but there's nobody to take the mask after me yet. I try to leave the way I came but Nite Owl puts his hand on my shoulder. "If I ask you who you are, you'll just say you're Rorshach, won't you?"

"Yes."

"Will you tell me about who you were?"

I consider it. There should be someone here besides me who remembers Penny, remembers why we're doing this. But here is not the place. "Not here," I say aloud. "People will hear me and then people will hunt me down and kill me. I need to be cautious."

I look at Veidt's corpse longingly, and pocket the empty syringe. I'll ditch it in a back alley, with the hookers and the junkies and all the other kinds of whores. No one will notice another needle there.

"Even though I want to be dead, history says I can't do that yet."


	4. Chapter 4

I do not own Watchmen or Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

----

Saw Penny today.

She smiled at me.

That's not entirely true. Wasn't Penny. Didn't smile at _me_ - not the real me. Smiled at the mask. The one that can walk around in daylight and go to laundromats and eat frozen yogurt.

Was actually at laundromat. Nite Owl bought new clothes for me to wear on days off, if they existed. They got dirty. Not enough room for machine in apartment and sink not good enough, says Comedienne. So forced self to use laundromat again.

She looked just like Penny. Her brother - hope to God it's her brother - looks like Captain Hammer. She works at the homeless shelter that just opened up on Fifth and Main.

May be projecting. Hope to God I'm projecting, because I can't do it all over again.

She smiled at me.

I saw Penny today.


	5. Chapter 5

I do not own Watchmen or Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

----

The girl with red hair cried and had no one to lean on. Her brother, Captain Hank "Hammer" Lesse, had shot the man they were burying today, and was dead to her. She supposed his masked friends, Nite Owl and Comedienne, were in the crowd somewhere, too, but she would never know who they were.

It had started off with smiles and light conversation over laundry. It had moved on to frozen yogurt in the afternoons. Then dinner in the evenings while they got to know everything about each other. Then they started to say that it was love. Then the sex. But never in her apartment. He never thought he was good enough for her and, besides, sometimes he got hurt when he was fighting criminals and his floor was easier to clean.

Oh yes, she'd known she was seeing Rorshach. He'd told her. On, like, their second real date. He'd told her the whole story on the third. She knew about the other universe he'd come from, about the ghost she had brought back to life for him, and about Ozymandias' monster, and why he'd never do anything about it. Oddly enough, she'd never once thought he was crazy.

She knew all about the murderers and child molesters he killed late at night, about the corrupt businessmen and politicians and military minds he poisoned or arranged to have poisoned. She knew how much he wanted to be one of the corpses he laid out every night. She knew that he called it "stemming the flow of disease" while they waited for "the cure" to kick in.

The night he never came home, he said the five words she'd never thought she'd hear him say: "I want to be alive." Alive, not dead. And it was because of her! Well, her and the baby they were going to have. It figured that the irony of the universe would choose that night, that last, perfect night, to kick in. The police had set a trap for Rorshach and, for once, he hadn't seen it. He didn't kill any cops like the last one, but he went down fighting. Her brother had fired the fatal shot - the only one that hit.

She tried to see through her tears. He had taught her to be alert. He had wanted her to be safe even before she'd gotten pregnant.

He had also told her he would retire or die at the end of August, because history had said Rorshach disappeared for twenty three years at the end of August. For one blessed evening she'd thought it would be the first option. Then she'd gone out to get some first-aid stuff, and then she'd heard the gunshot, and then she'd watched him die.

He'd been Rorshach and loved her for most of his life. For a little bit at the end, he was Billy again, when he saw Penny calling him home.

There were a lot of people here to remember the good Rorshach had done. The pimps and the pushers would come and spit on his grave tomorrow but today, the prostitutes and the junkies and all the other kinds of whores came to pay their last respects.

A woman with long brown hair walked up to her. "You were his lucky penny?" she said.

Sonia nodded and tried to smile. "More like a bad penny. H-he couldn't get rid of me." She looked closer at the dark-haired woman. "Comedienne?" she whispered.

The woman nodded.

"I knew you would be here. You and Nite Owl were his friends."

Comedienne looked at Rorshach's grave. "Did he buy that in advance?"

"No," said Sonia. "But I think he'd like it." The tombstone had no dates or names. She'd had one of his faces - the one he'd been wearing the night he died - set into the stone, so he would forever be open to interpretation. She also put two pennies in the coffin, so she and the ghost could be close to him forever, but that was a private matter. "You must be Nite Owl, then."

"That's right," said the bespecled man. "I have to admit, we didn't know if you'd want to talk to us."

"Were you away when he needed you? Or were you giving him the space he needed? It's open to interpretation, and the way you interpret things says a lot about the person you are."

"Definately Rorshach's girl," said Comedienne.

"No. Or yes. It's all in the interpretation, isn't it? He said you had somewhere safe I could be until I have the baby."

"Sonia," said the good-looking police captain, who'd made his way through the crowd to talk to her. He put his hand on her shoulder. "Sonia, it's time to go home."

"Get your hands off of me," she snapped. A homeless man who lived near Rorshach's apartment looked up, focusing on the confrontation and glaring at the police officer. "You're dead to me, do you hear me? I loved Rorshach! I told you he wasn't the same as the first one! You're just too self-centred and, and closed-minded to see it! You took away everything I ever-" She broke down crying and turned away.

"Leave her alone, cop," said the homeless man.

"But... I'm her brother," he said.

"Way I see it," said Comedienne. "You aren't much of a brother if you killed your sister's lover."

"You also aren't much of a cop if you couldn't see the difference between the Rorshach who used to be Walter Kovacks and this one," said Nite Owl.

"The first one, he was a lunatic," said the homeless man. "Couldn't see colours, couldn't see the bigger picture. Think he'd have had more than two, maybe three friends at his funeral, cop? This one, he was smart. We ain't gonna see another like him in my life. Leave the lady alone, cop."

After a moment, he left. Comedienne murmured condolences to the sobbing woman and the homeless man returned to his contemplation of the shifting face on the tombstone.

"Sonia," said Nite Owl gently. "We probably shouldn't stay here much longer. It's getting dark."

She nodded, and walked over to the grave. She pressed a last kiss to the blotted mask that was her lover's face. "Goodbye," she said. "Hope you're with Penny, and the world makes sense."


End file.
